The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two (31 page)

The murderer watched her. The smell of
gasoline was slowly overpowering the pine.

“Not a serial killer.” He lit a match and
dropped it on the clothes. They burst into flames. “Worse.” Gouts
of black smoke flew across the damp forest floor like ghosts.

He walked over, his face set and grim. Karen
retreated toward the car, fear hammering in her chest. The butt of
a pistol protruded from his belt. A void filled his bony eye
sockets. He stared at her. Sinew bunched at his jaw like he was
about to pronounce judgment. Something colored his features. He
bent, lifted his duffel bag, and pointed at the forest path.

“Go.” He gestured with the bag.

Karen shifted on the bed—remembering. The
light from the barred window was gray. She could remember the next
part clearly. She reached for her crucifix, but was glad it was
gone.

They had walked to the highway. Its surface
was cracked and pitted. He swung the bag over his shoulder and
started marching north. In the distance she could see the City
gleam. Lights burned on its massive spine and soaked the overcast
sky with pale light.

Cawood followed mutely, sorting through her
thoughts. She knew this man would kill her. The fact that she
remained alive meant something though.
Oh Sacred Mother
! Was
this punishment for her sins?

The murderer would keep her alive if she
cooperated. If she could stay alive, she might find a way to bring
this man to justice. She’d do anything to atone for the disgrace
she’d brought on the church. By now her superiors must have
received a copy of the film.
Holy Mother
! And poor Able was
dead.

Why did the murderer think she set him up?
She barely believed Able’s reason for going to the house.

So if the murderer was keeping her alive, was
it as a hostage? Did he need a bargaining chip if Authority tracked
him down? If he believed that there was a conspiracy at work
against him, and he saw her as part of it, he might believe he
could hide behind her living body or trade it for his freedom. But
how could she bargain with him?

A car approached from the north. It moved
slowly never wandering more than a few inches from the yellow
line.

“Come!” the man ordered, slipping his shirt
over the gun in his belt. They crossed the road to the southbound
lane. “Wave,” the murderer hissed as he started waving. “Now.”

Cawood waved her arms. Perhaps God had sent
the car to tip the odds in her favor. “Holy Mother! Preserve me!”
she whispered.

The car slowed. It was old, a Ford with busy
chromium grill that was part of a retro-fifties fad decades after
Change. It was a light metallic red in color and in good repair.
Perhaps the traveler could read her expression. He might go for
help.

The murderer walked casually to the passenger
window, the driver was rolling it down. “Hello.” He leaned over, a
smile on his face.

“Hey there.” The man had homely comical
features. His eyes were blue and close set, marked with a serious
dark line of eyebrow. “Got trouble?”

The murderer casually pointed down the road
with his right hand, while his left came out from under his shirt
with a gun.

“Out! Leave the keys,” he growled.

“Damn!” the driver grumbled climbing out. His
face shifted to angry surprise. He scanned the highway for help. He
looked at Cawood.

“Hands where I can see them!” the murderer
spat.

“God damn it!” the driver shouted. “Just take
the car. Go on.”

“Move,” the murderer growled, gesturing to
the ditch at the side of the road. Beyond that Cawood saw a wooded
area.

“We’ve got the car!” she cried, her nerves
firing wildly. “Please!”

The murderer pushed the driver toward the
ditch.

“Just take the car,” the traveler said as he
slid down the loose stone and gravel at the road’s edge. “Take
it.”

“Let’s take the car!” Karen screamed.

“Yeah, take it. It’s just...” The driver’s
voice was cut off by a shot. A plume of red appeared on the far
side of his head. He toppled.

“No!” Karen ran at her captor. “You can’t do
that! No!”

The murderer spun toward her with gun raised.
The barrel rammed her face, clinked off her teeth. She lurched
back.

“Get in the car!” the murderer hissed.
“Now!”

For a second, Karen tried to find the martyr
in her soul. But death was meaningless to this man. “Evil!” she
screamed at him, pointing at his face. “Evil!”

“Now!” the murderer barked, starting toward
her. He slapped her hand aside. “In the car!”

He pushed her with his free hand. She fell to
a knee. He gripped her arm, lifted and threw her against the car.
“Get in!” He pulled the passenger door open, shoved her. She kicked
at his crotch but he turned and her heel glanced off his hip. He
leapt on her, pushed her face violently against the seat. His
fingers dug into her neck like steel spikes. He punched her behind
the ear, and she screamed.

Cawood heard his breath close, and she swung
her head up. There was a thump as it connected with his
forehead

He cursed and hit her with the gun.

She felt him arch his back, press his hips
into her buttocks. She pushed back into him, screaming. He was
aroused. She heard the jangle of his belt buckle.

The murderer spat a curse and slapped the
back of her head. Pain shot through her temples as he made a
hissing noise and pulled her skirt up, ripped her pantyhose and
underwear aside. And he entered her. The gun barrel scraped against
the back of her skull as he thrust into her, growling like a mad
dog. And she pushed back against him, suddenly overwhelmed by a
wave of vicious desire. And he grunted, and thrust harder. He
pressed her face against the seat; the gun barrel cut the side of
her face.

As he climaxed, so did she. But her heart
beat with grotesque satisfaction. Her abdomen quivered and her
thighs shook. Maybe that was why she was here. She was as sick as
he was. The murderer cursed and snarled and pushed himself off her.
He grabbed her wrists and shoved them painfully against the
dashboard. Karen turned her head as he lashed her hands to the
steering wheel with his belt. The leather bit into her flesh as he
pulled on the knot with all his strength.

“Didn’t hurt you,” he spat at her. “You’re a
nun?”

Cawood smiled back at him with carnal desire,
for the first time, feeling some power. She wanted him to hurt her.
Emotion wrinkled the corner of the man’s eye.

He hissed into her ear—intimately familiar.
“Wait.” Her cheek burned from his stubble. He pulled the car keys
free, then climbed out. She heard him scramble down the sandy
embankment.

He came back and freed her hands—pushed her
into her seat. As he turned the car north, he spoke. “I don’t kill
without a reason. You don’t enjoy rape without one.”

“You didn’t have to kill him!” Karen’s voice
broke.

“A sacrifice,” he growled.

“To who?” she screamed.

“Me.” The killer smirked. “Who were you
sacrificing to?”

Sitting on the bed, Karen Cawood remembered
their only conversation. Afterward, his manner had hardened to
something mechanical. This killer was powerful. And he was
remorseless. But he wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t the only one who
enjoyed the rape.

43 – Shootout at the Pig’s House

Felon watched the dining room through a
two-way mirror studying his old companions for signs of strength.
The assassin always searched for strength first. Successful human
hunters did not look for weakness alone. Weaknesses were obvious.
Vulnerabilities drew a predator like a magnet. Since Felon trusted
his instincts his intellect was free to focus on potential dangers.
So as in the case of the group before him, he looked for the
strongest. That’s the one he had to worry about.

They were former Regulators, once paid by
nascent Authority in the early days of the Change to deal with the
uncooperative dead. Regulators would be sent in to quash riots and
settle disputes. That was usually done with heavy caliber machine
guns, machetes and bulldozers. When the political price of
Regulators grew too high, they were “deputized” into the growing
Authority forces, or declared “undesirables” and hunted down like
criminals. Felon freelanced with Regulators but never considered
himself one of them. The legal vacuum they represented was often a
convenient place to hide a hit. But the majority of them were
amateurs.

This trio wanted nothing to do with Authority
ranks so formed a larger group of criminals with similar tastes
that they called the Wild Bunch. Felon had known the trio, and
others from their gang for decades.

But looking at them now, he felt nothing.
They’d worked together over the years, off and on, Felon bringing
them on as hired guns. The whole thing had almost blown apart on a
northern lake five decades after the Change. They had been a tough
well-organized team of outlaws at the time, hired to help him track
down an informant who was in the protection of some lowlife
detective trying to make a name for himself wearing clown makeup.
The informant was an Authority Operative who could prove the Prime
was going to manipulate election results to get into power.

The pressure was on and time was short so
Felon needed lots of extra bodies to track them down. He farmed out
some of the work to independent contractors. That was a mistake.
Amateurs and hangers-on were brought. The detective got wise and
Felon almost got killed. The clown had unexpected allies. Felon
killed him, but the informant got back to the City of Light. News
of his existence brought a whistleblower out of the political
woodwork, and that had slowed the Prime’s takeover for a decade.
Felon didn’t get paid, and rightly so. He’d made the mistake of
letting his feelings get involved. He underestimated the
detective.

But these gunmen had proven themselves over
the intervening years. Tiny was the brains of the operation,
sharing leadership with the Texan, Driver. Felon appreciated
Driver’s comprehensive knowledge of the art of killing, and had on
many occasions discussed the finer points of it. He was a daring
and experienced getaway man as well and so his name. Tiny, on the
other hand, still carried some of his pre-Change bourgeois
attitudes. He still believed a man’s measure came in how much cash
was folded in his pocket. Felon did not trust him as much when it
came to action.

Bloody was a problem. He was a big reckless
murderer who hid behind a thin visage of education. Felon knew that
education was easy. Wisdom was something else. He’d proven that
when Bloody turned a stupid argument over guns into a reason for
Felon to kill him. Eight years before, Felon got to a job early and
Bloody was the only one there. He was drunk and aggressive. He
started into an argument over whether his weapon, a .45 magnum
Colt, was better than a .9 mm automatic because of its killing
power.

Felon held that accuracy was everything. The
big gunman insisted that fear won a gunfight, and the bigger the
gun, the greater the fear. Felon wasn’t afraid of anything. A gun
was just a machine. You had to fear the man holding it.

Bloody took that as an insult and reached for
his .45. It got caught in his belt, which was another criticism
Felon had offered about its antique shape versus the .9 mm’s sleek
design. The assassin drew his .9 mm and shot the gunman eight
times.

The assassin had left then, and did not
return. There was a good chance that Bloody’s friends would want
revenge. He’d prefer talking to them at a distance, after tempers
cooled.

But they hadn’t talked since. Looking at
Bloody now, Felon could see that the dead gunman had allowed
himself to dehydrate and grow stiff. His movements spoke to that.
The fool wouldn’t be much in a gunfight, but Felon didn’t think
he’d pose much of a threat to him either.

“Well,” Felon heard Driver’s voice through
the hidden microphones. “Where in hell is he?”

But Felon was already moving. He slipped out
the pocket door behind him and stepped into the hall that ran
parallel to the dining room. There were two men with guns
approaching. That wasn’t part of the plan.

The black man on the left was tall. He
reached for an Uzi on a sling under his arm. That was his mistake.
Felon’s suspicions immediately crystallized.

The heavyset man on the right was average
height and build. He had an automatic with extended clip in his
hand.

They weren’t supposed to be here. The
assassin knew that. And they knew that. They were behind schedule.
If the black man hadn’t touched his Uzi they would have had
him.

With one hand on the doorknob, Felon flicked
his right into his coat, came up with the .9 mm. The silencer was
on, so the kills would be quiet. He took his time as the two gunmen
lifted their weapons. The tall black man took a bullet to the face.
The other man took three to the heart. They dropped.

Something caught the corner of Felon’s
vision—movement to the left. He spun and fired a couple more
bullets. These caught a dwarf in ridiculous Victorian livery. The
top of his head blew out from under the powdered wig.

Felon replaced the clip and hurried over to
the dwarf. There was something wrong about him. It resembled the
Marquis’ servant but the legs were too thick and the arms long. The
assassin flipped the body over and recognized the distended and
twisted features of an Eyesore. A stench of vomit and urine rose
from the body. Wurn had smelled like that.

Felon turned and ran toward the dining
room.

Gunfire suddenly erupted in the hall ahead.
The assassin threw himself against the wall. He listened, counted
weapons. Driver’s automatics were clattering. Tiny’s .357 boomed,
so did Bloody’s .45.

He also recognized .38 caliber gunfire, rapid
maybe automatic, followed by the unmistakable monster howl of
autoshotguns.
Authority
?